CONSIDERRING RETURNING TO INDIA FOR RETIRED LIFE – OCI STATUS MAY BE YOUR BEST CHOICE Lal Varghese, Attorney at Law, Dallas If you are considering returning to India to lead a retired life, OCI status in India would be a much better option for you if you and your spouse are U. S citizens. There are so many advantages in obtaining the OCI status including increased interest rates for deposits in Indian banks including nationalized banks. Both State Bank of India and its subsidiary banks and other nationalized banks offer interest rates up to 9% for NRE deposits. You can open an NRE deposit with any bank in India if you are an OCI status holder. The good thing is that the deposits are repatriable and both the deposits and interest are
not subject to Indian income tax. The only thing you need to do is file a report with the IRS every year before June 30th informing about your foreign account with deposits over $10,000. You income outside United States are also exempt from U. S taxes up to $80,000 per year. In short, an OCI card holder has all benefits like an Indian citizen except couple of things like 1) OCI card holder cannot contest in both State and Central elections, 2) OCI cardholder cannot vote in State or Central elections, 2) OCI card holder cannot obtain government jobs, 3) OCI car holder cannot own large agricultural plantations.